Friday, June 20, 2014

Phone Free Friday: Tackling "this feeling that you’re never free”

Phone Free Friday: Tackling "this feeling that you’re never free”

Mobile phones have been proven to have a detrimental effect on relationships and mental health. The Samaritans have come up with Phone Free Friday in an attempt to combat the issue and make people more aware of the extent of their mobile phone use. VoR's Carmen Cracknell has more.

It’s a common sight - commuters with their necks arched, gazing intently into their mobile phones.

Ninety-four percent of adults now use a mobile phone and they have become a staple accessory in most people’s lives.

And now that most people have mobile Wi-Fi, the average smartphone user spends over two hours a day using their mobile.

Around 43 minutes is spent both browsing the internet and checking social networks, with less time spent calling and texting.

“Anxiety is rife in the population. Certainly when the phone rings, anxiety is increased, particularly if one is of an anxious disposition, or if one has things to worry about such as debt thoughts. Others such as calls from bosses will cause anxiety and there’s this feeling that you’re never free.”

As well as making us more anxious, mobile phone use can also make us more selfish according to a study from the University of Maryland.

The researchers found that after a short period of mobile phone use subjects were less inclined to volunteer for community service.

Another study in the United States found that excessive phone users commonly suffered from headaches, irritability and anger.

Some scientists have said excessive mobile phone use mirrors consumption pathologies like compulsive buying.

Eighty-four percent of us say we can’t go for a whole day without our phones, and most of us check our phones 150 times a day.

British people are the second most prolific social media users in Europe, behind the Netherlands. The addictive effects of social media have been widely reported, with one study saying Facebook withdrawals trigger the same response as withdrawing from drugs.

With the range of mobile phones available increasing and the ability of phones to perform ever more functions, it looks like the amount of time we spend on mobile phones will only increase for the foreseeable future.

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About Me

While I have always been extremely health conscious and am presently in excellent health, I did become temporarily out-of-commission (i.e. I was really sick) in 2005 with a number of at the time unexplainable symptoms. I was quite puzzled at the time because I had been eating mainly organically grown food, drinking spring water, doing Yoga every morning, and going to the gym several times a week. In other words, I was doing everything one is supposed to do to stay healthy. I was not supposed to get sick. It took me six months before discovering or even imagining the main source of the problem - which was in fact "overexposure to electromagnetic" - especially microwave - radiation. I was living within 200 meters of two cell phone towers at the time and within 500 meters of a 3rd one with numerous WiFi signals bleeding into my apartment from adjacent neighbors. I developed a host of symptoms, which are found in what has been misleadingly described as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) -- but much more accurately described as Radio Wave or Microwave Sickness. Large numbers of people in the USA suddenly started getting sick in 1984...